Meredith's view and friend feed,part.2

Following on from Merdith's Farkas insightful article called 'W(h)ither blogging and the library blogosphere?'. Whilst checking my feeds I noted that Michael Goldrick had commented upon it in his blog, and not only pointed to this, but also the feedback on friend feed. The feed back was so good I event went and joined the conversation. Some really insightful comments to.

The demise of blogging? Part 1

Meredith Farkas has an interesting over on her site entitled 'W(h)ither blogging and the library blogosphere?'. I 've discussed this previously. Meredith's article makes much sense. The uptake of twitter and microblogging seems to have cause a decline in Blogging. Many great blogs like Infotangle by Ellyssa Kroski has been replaced by her new blog ilibrarian. Other library blogs seem to have lessened in the library blogosphere, but as Walt Walt says in the comments of Merediths article :-

Great post and remarkable set of comments–and Karin, I think you’re right on the money. Twitter et al (I really dislike the term “microblogging,” but can’t win that one) have, in a way, strengthened essay-length blogging while weakening short-form blogging (maybe)–and essays have always been harder to do than quick notes.

Really worth reading it and especially the comments section. By the way, when mentioning Ellyssa I wasn't having a go at her.

Library video and the hive

(Found via here), Jisc has released a video entitled Libraries of the future on youtube.
Librarians Matters blog says of it:-

Libraries as bee-hives? Google as a partner? Librarians as network administrators as much as information specialists? Librarians “entrepreneurial, engaged and outward looking”? Investing thousands of pounds in change management programs?

The video is well worth a look.

One year on

A year yesterday my baby brother was murdered. Its been sad without him and even sadder going to Cornwall to be with my parents. I still hold the memories and times we had together. Anyhow here are some video's of Jody (1 and 2). Thanks to all the messages of support.

Panlibus competition that rocks the mainstage

Panlibus have released their monthly podcast entitled The Library 2.0 Gang on Mashups. In it they tall with Nicole Engard of what I learned today blog (a must read blog). Obviously they discussed mashups, but also Nicole's new edited book entitled Library Mashups : Exploring New Ways to Deliver Library Data . There's a facebook page, a contents page of the twenty chapters and the release date (late september).

There is also a competition on Panlibus site, stating:-

This month’s show launches the Library 2.0 Gang Mashup Idea competition. To enter you need to send in your idea for a library mashup. It can be as simple or complex as you like. The only restriction being that it must include library data or functionality somewhere within it. The best three, as judged by Nicole Engard and myself, will each receive a copy of the Library Mashups book she has edited. Closing date is August 31st, send your entries to librarygang@talis.com.

I've put my entry in. I hope I win, but I rarely do.

Phil Bradley discuses Cilip use of Web 2.0 technologies draft paper

Phil Bradley has written about Cilip draft Council Paper. This is obviously after the fall out from the Cilip 2.0 discussion in late April 2009.

Phil says of the document:-

I'm pleased to see all of these draft statements, which echoes and develops what both Brian Kelly and myself talked about at the April Council meeting. I'll be interested to see how this develops from words into actions next!

Let see how it pans out I suppose.

Chartership, wiki's and idea's.....

Having previously mentioned I had set up my own Wiki, I had unfortunately allowed to stand more dormant than my delicous account. Until I started my Cilip chartership that is.
Therefore my idea with my wiki is to put as much information online about my idea's and what I am presently doing etc. I can then inform my mentor and they can edit any idea or just look it over. Simple and productive I think.

New book at the book sale

I just went to Waterstones on Gower street, where they had a half price sale on for second hand books. So I picked up Nicholas Carr's book 'Big Switch' for £2.97. Along with reading this and this at present I really must get them completed.

Some interesting Mash up idea from mash oop north

Mash oop north has released 30 ideas (if you ignore my initial idea) submitted by delegates on its web page. Their are some great idea's here and well worth looking at here.

Should I quit blogging post

(Found via here) Stephen Abram pointed me in the direction of this post 'Should I Quit Blogging?' by Darren Rowse. I have mentioned previously, and although Walt Crawford responded by saying:-

Blogging has had a low persistence rate for years. I'd like to think that the best bloggers are sticking around...but I've always been a Candide at heart.

Rowse's response to the decline of blogging wrote following:-

Blogging is not dead - it’s evolving.

You should be evolving too (read Blogs are Out of Beta, But Bloggers Should always be in Beta)
Keep being useful, keep solving problems and keep meeting needs - whatever the medium this is key.

Keep producing content - people continue to search the web for content in huge numbers. It’s not all about networking and bookmarking - whether it be text, video or audio - keep producing content.

Experiment with different mediums - to the best of your ability keep abreast of the ‘new’ mediums that are emerging.

Build a ‘Home Base’ - many people flit from one medium to another and end up with nothing of their own (read more on the Home Bases and Outposts that I use).

Build a Brand - the mediums are tools. They’ll come and go in time - the key is to build something that lasts beyond them.

Don’t be Precious about your ‘Blog’ and be open to change - there’s no one ‘right’ way to blog. Blogs can have comments or not have comments, have full RSS feeds or partial ones, look like a traditional blog or act and look more like a lifestream or portal. The key is to know what you want to achieve and let that shape what you do with your blog.

Don’t abandon your blog too quickly - your primary efforts may move into a different medium but blogs can be an important part of the mix of what you do online. Don’t abandon your blog - build upon it, let it evolve, leverage what you’ve already built and use it where appropriate in the mix of what you do.

I think its a pretty good article about how blogging is a great tool. I'm hoping to soon add to Darren's list in the near future on why I blog.

Google O/S on the streets soon.....

(Found via Lisnews), discussed the news that Google is going to release its own O/S.  Ishush then discusses how this might be a good thing for librarians saying of this news:-

Which is cool on a number of fronts -- Being an open source system (?) it'll further the general 'biodiversity' of the web as it invites modifications. It'll knock MS hard which is good for all of our imaginations (I'm tired of walking around in a Windows frame of mind, forced to crunch my numbers and words in Windows ways).

Its going to be interesting when its released.

Free Book released

(Found via ilibrarian), in which Chris Anderson has released his new book FREE for free here. Lets see if I get time to read it.

Mash oop north............lightning talks

After lunch, the lightning talks started, which were 5-10 minute talks on what could and/ or maybe done at other institutions.

First up was Owen Stephens discussing interactive fiction and information literacy. He pointed us in the direction of this site as an example.

Next up was Tanya Williamson, who discussed Edward.R.Tufte. Tufte she described as an 'artist, economist and statistician'. Tufte also had a thing against, confusion and clutter are failures of design, not attributes of information.' He also had a treaty against PowerPoint (not a bad thing then?)

Next up was Paul Stainthorp and Joss Winn discussed Scriblio. Both looked at the plug-ins for word-press, and how you can create your own database and tags. Both looked at how you could individualise the users experience, which remind me of Nicholas Negroponte Idea of the Daily me and Ranganathan idea :-

These laws are:

1. Books are for use.
2. Every reader his [or her] book.
3. Every book its reader.
4. Save the time of the User.
5. The library is a growing organism.

There were more talks, but these are the one's I have notes for.

Anyway, thats it for my write up of the Mash oop north.

Mash oop north......lunch and other points of interest

Apart from listening to talks in the morning, I was also interested in what else I would learn. Firstly I used twitter a hell of a lot, and could see its advantages in this environment (ie an unconference). I also used the the mashlib hashtag. I was pointed in the direction of many exciting things (see here).

I also did not go and to the mash up in the proceeding rooms, in which case I could have learnt more. I was also not very forward on my networking either. Though I was glad I spoke with Dave Pattern to say thanks for the day

I did enjoy the plentiful supply of food though. I also lived off coffee for the day.

I also forgot to mention that were some pre lighning talks based on Mike Reed's 'Runaround'. These area's included the Semantic Web, Information Literacy, Mobile devices, social networking and discussed by some of the experts there. Everytime runaround was said, you had to move and go to another area (if you wished).

Mash oop north......Mike Ellis talk

Mike Ellis was next up.  He was discussing Scraping, scripting, hacking. Mike looked at how we could scrape data via Yahoo pipes, Google Docs, Dapper, YQL, HTTRACK, Regex (which Mike said was very powerful), Mail Merge (I kid you not), Html tidy, Open Calais (which is better than Regex Mike said) and many more. It was all pretty quick, and I found it hard to keep up with (read I'm not too hot on this). Owen Stephens gives a lot better overview of it here though.

Mash oop north......Richard Wallis talk

Richard Wallis was up next up. He was Discussing the juice project. The Juice project is open source and described thus:-

A simple componentised framework constructed in Javascript to enable the sharing of Ajax Style extensions to a web interface.

Although the drive for this is rooted in Library OPAC interfaces, the framework is applicable to any environment which, via identifiers contained within a html page, needs to link to or embed external resources.

Or as Richard said, 'it slaps on some mash on the opac'. 

There's an interesting article here about the Juice project here. I say this as my notes are VERY  poor.

Mash oop north......Brian Kelly talk

Brian Kelly was the firt speaker I listened to, who discussed 'Enthusiastic amateurs and overcoming institutional inertia', which is something very close to my heart. Brian spoke about how to approach institutions about implementing web 2.0 idea's or just iniatives. He discussed how different people and organisations can bring new idea's in. He discussed how doing something and showing how good it may work within  organisation is a good way to implement things (rather than to march over them). A good Idea, if the organisation is open to change.  

Paul Stainthorp and his colleague Josh Winn, seemed part of a lucky minority to have less institutional inertia than others (I must ask if they have any opportunities there then.....thats a joke btw)

Brian talked about how we could use recent reports to underline how we could aid are bringing in new 'web 2.0 technologies'  to assist our users/students/patrons. He pointed us in the direction of two of them. The Demos report and Higher education in a web 2.0 world. These should be use as indicators to both management and staff to underline our need to go forward and to enable our users rather than to stop them.

Brian discussed the Cilip 2.0 debate also between Phil Bradley and the Cilp CE, and hw Cilip was shown it need to be changed. Very Cluetrain manifesto.

Brian also said another approach to bringing in change is to show your rivals and what they are doing to instigate change. An example would obviously be Sheffield University, which is presently using netflakes, vle etc.

I later spoke 1 to 1 with brian and had an interesting discussion with him. I really found it an informative approach to this problem. 

Mash oop north......the come down (south)

After finally getting to Huddersfield I was struck how nice it was. Being stuck in London, i'm always struck by how flat it is. Huddersfield is a town in a valley with greenery. I got to the university in fairly good time and found Huddersfield University quite nice. As in the previous mash up at Birkbeck, Wi-Fi was a problem, but nothing major, as technology was not the main principle of the event but meeting like minded people.

David Pattern, who deserve a big round of applause for sorting this out opened proceedings. He discussed how different badges on peope would work and how the day would proceed. We then proceeded through the day.

Starting my Cilip chartership

As mentioned previously, I am about to start on on my Cilip chartership. I meet with my mentor and I've been set a few tsk to do over the next month. Just the thing I need right now to get my intellectual juices flowing.

On our way to the Mash Oop north

After Setting my alarm for the unearthily hour of 4.30am (that time does exist), I finally got my train from Kings Cross (though I did go to Euston by accident first). I'm really looking forward to this mash up, but coffee is mainly on my mind at the moment. The programme looks especially exciting. I am especially looking forward to the lightning talks, specifically though this one:-

2:30pm - Chris Langham

Drawbacks of using stock recommemdations (i.e borrowers who borrowed this item also borrowed these) in an academic library context.

I've always been interested in whether serendiptous searching. Having written about librarything previously it really is a pet love of mine.

I've started twitter for the conference and set up a Flickr account for the event to. I will keep you updated over the day how it goes. I need caffeine now.

Preparation for the Mash oop north......

Well as I prepare for going o Huddersfield to the Mash oop north. All my gadgetry is prepared. My Computer (check). Camera (check). External Hard-drive (check). Ipod (check). I've got the tickets, i've got to get up at 4.30 am on tuesday. Wohoo. I'm hoping their is Wi-fi on the train to, so i can blog on the way.

Andrew Keen goes OTT....

After saying that Andrew Keen is working on The Telegraph, I have seen one of his early articles, entitled Google, the toothless Big brother. Keen feels that Google has lost the power it seemed to havein 2006. He then says this:-

The truth is that the Google search-engine has no more idea of what I want to do tomorrow than a clairvoyant’s crystal ball and it is increasingly vulnerable to next-generation knowledge organisation systems like the recently released Wolfram Alpha.

Wolfram Alpha? Please? How have they impacted on Google? I think he maybe losing it.